On Senate Introduction of the Employee Free Choice Act
Thursday, March 29, 2007
For Immediate
Release
Contact: Caren Benjamin 202
637-5018
Statement by
AFL-CIO President John Sweeney
On Senate
Introduction of the Employee Free
Choice Act
March 29,
2007
Working families can
celebrate the
fact that Senator Kennedy has introduced
the Employee Free Choice Act today in
the Senate. The Senate will now
have a chance to weigh in on the single
most
important piece of legislation to help
working people build a better life for
themselves and their families.
The U.S. House of Representatives has
paved the way for this momentous opportunity,
voting by a wide margin to give
working people a real chance to unite
with co-workers and bargain for better
wages and benefits. Working
families are encouraged that the Senate is
moving
this key legislation forward in the
first quarter of the year.
A
union
card is the straightest ticket into a middle
class lifestyle with a decent
standard of living and the ability to provide
for your family. But for too long
now, working people have been denied the
opportunity to have a union because
corporations flagrantly and routinely violate
workers' freedom to form unions,
and the law is helpless to stop them. The
result is an America where CEOs are
showered with lavish pay packages while
working people are struggling to make
ends meet.
It's fitting that this
legislation was introduced on the same
day as the media reported on a new
economic analysis showing that per person,
the top earners in America make 440
times more than the average person in the
bottom half of earners. That's nearly double
the gap from 1980 and a key reason
why the American middle class is rapidly
disappearing.
The Employee Free
Choice Act restores balance to the system of
forming unions and bargaining by
giving employees not bosses the option
of deciding how they will freely choose
whether to form a union. The
legislation also creates real penalties for
employers who illegally interfere with
organizing efforts and sets up a system
to ensure that workers get a first contract
even if their employers refuse to
bargain in good faith after the choice of the
majority to unionize has been
certified.
With the Employee Free
Choice Act, the Senate has an historic
chance to make sure that America works
the way it should for everyone.